How do you Solve a Problem Like Jerome Corsi?

There they go again. The right wing smear machine that devastated John Kerry with their “swift boat” ads back in 2004 is at it again, still led my Jerome Corsi. Corsi, for those who do know, is the liar who wrote “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry” amd who has just released version 2.0, entitled "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," which is, according to some reports, an even more inadequately sourced and researched book than the one he wrote about Kerry. In the latest book Corsi repeats and rehashes lots of the same slurs and lies that have been leveled against Obama before and have already been discredited.

Unfortunately, this book may pose a real threat to Obama. Not that it SHOULD mind you, but given how the Swift Boat mess scuttled Kerry before even his convention, Obama pretty mush is required to respond to this is some way or another. The problem is how. How does Obama respond to the smears when they aren’t being even perpetrated by John McCain?

With all due humility, I do have an idea. You know how many political ads you see where someone urges you to “call George W. Bush and tell him to say ‘no’ to big oil companies”? Obviously, these ads are popular with lots of politicians and lots of §527s for lots of different issues. Why can’t Obama create an ad that talks about Corsi’s book and how it’s all slander and lies. Run a few quotes from MSM sources that talk about how the book is complete bullshit.

Then, the kicker: Have the announcer say “Call John McCain. Tell him to denounce the slanders and false attacks.” Flash the 800 number up on the screen where people call and then wait.

This would, in my estimation, put McCain in the uncomfortable position of having to respond to attacks he didn’t issue but which he won’t otherwise denounce. At first he will probably talk about how “it’s a free country and I don’t know what he wrote since I haven’t read the book” but this puts Obama in the driver’s seat. Obama can then say “John McCain represent’s destructive politics as usual. A man wrote a book with the stated intent of getting John McCain elected President and to do that, he had to fill the book with lies. John McCain won’t renounce those attacks even though hundreds of unbiased media outlets, the people John McCain has called his “base,” have said they’re lies.

If Obama does this, he gets to claim the high road, he gets to put John McCain on the defensive for an unscrupulous hit he didn’t order and that is what Obama needs here. Obama cannot win with this issue, but if he plays it correctly, he can neutralize it, which is probably about the best he can hope for. And that is probably all he needs.